Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iPhone-alikes: miniOne, F700, LG Prada
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Its all good. I just read about Watson, I had never heard about that.
When does implementing become stealing? Does it have to be copyrighted? It appears to be a very thin line. So thin, that it is hard (or not worth it) to take legal action (like in Watsons case).
I don't think the companies making these 'new' cell phones are stealing from each other; they are just implementing ideas, concepts, and technologies that are around.
Yep.
I suppose 'stealing' depends on who is doing the stealing and how much of a fan boy that person is who is trying define the word ;-)
Watson got sold to Sun ( I think ) and was never heard of again.
Yep, I think your definitely right there - all cell manufacturers copy each other, and innovate those ideas into products.
I suppose 'stealing' depends on who is doing the stealing and how much of a fan boy that person is who is trying define the word ;-)
Watson got sold to Sun ( I think ) and was never heard of again.
Yep, I think your definitely right there - all cell manufacturers copy each other, and innovate those ideas into products.
I believe that this discussion of copy or not copy is misplaced. If someone, say a MS developer, comes up with an efficient way to do something, for example, then others should adopt it, either as is or with additional improvements. It is to the benefit of all users for this sharing to take place. Or do you feel that we could progress at the same speed if, for pride or otherwise, every company developed it’s own solutions in parallel?
It’s a little like criticizing Honda for adopting power windows since Toyota had them first. Would it be better if such functionality remained a Toyota thing forever? And it would be no better to continue in this way and start saying things like well yeah Toyota is no better because they adopted power steering, which Honda had before they did.
I'm in no way criticising companies for copying Apple or vice versa.
All companies do it ( yes, even Apple ), and as you say, benefits the consumer. Those ideas are improved upon in the next iteration of products.
You have good points.
All companies do it ( yes, even Apple ), and as you say, benefits the consumer. Those ideas are improved upon in the next iteration of products.
You have good points.
Fast User Switching (even admitted by SJ himself)
Spotlight
Spaces
That's after 5 seconds of thinking.
Jut remembered: Gadgets appeared in Vista in one of the beta-version, long before OS X got Widgets.
In 4th quarter of this year. And I don't think that Apple is going to open dozen or stores across Europe by that time. I would love for them to prove me wrong, but I don't see that happening.
My previous phone was Nokia 9300 Communicator. Current phone is Nokia E60, soon I'll be moving to E61.
touch it
Man, after watching Jeff Han demo his touch screen, I was ready to sell my car for one. . . . Definitely a replacement for a traditional keyboard. There are so many advantages. The size of the keyboard isn't set in stone. The number of keys isn't. The whole layout isn't either. Think about it, you could design your own keyboard layout to maximize efficiency. We wouldn't be slaves to the QWERTY, which was developed sometime in the Paleocene, I believe. It will definitely revolutionize the keyboard for people who speak and write languages that aren't based on the roman script; like Chinese, Japanese, Thai, etc. The touch screen as an input device is far more flexible than a keyboard. And I haven't even begun to discuss the ability to manipulate images. . .
I think touch screeneither Apple's idea of it or Jeff Han's or Nokia's or whateveris the biggest thing to happen in computing EVER. It will totally change user interfaces in ways we've only begun to imagine. And Steve Jobs didn't tell me that, I figured it out on my own.
Anyway, back on topic. Who cares if anybody stole the design of the iPhone or vice versa? Artists, engineers, musicians, even scientists borrow and remix other people's ideas all the time. It's how information flows and changes and GROWS.
Man, after watching Jeff Han demo his touch screen, I was ready to sell my car for one. . . . Definitely a replacement for a traditional keyboard. There are so many advantages. The size of the keyboard isn't set in stone. The number of keys isn't. The whole layout isn't either. Think about it, you could design your own keyboard layout to maximize efficiency. We wouldn't be slaves to the QWERTY, which was developed sometime in the Paleocene, I believe. It will definitely revolutionize the keyboard for people who speak and write languages that aren't based on the roman script; like Chinese, Japanese, Thai, etc. The touch screen as an input device is far more flexible than a keyboard. And I haven't even begun to discuss the ability to manipulate images. . .
I think touch screeneither Apple's idea of it or Jeff Han's or Nokia's or whateveris the biggest thing to happen in computing EVER. It will totally change user interfaces in ways we've only begun to imagine. And Steve Jobs didn't tell me that, I figured it out on my own.
Anyway, back on topic. Who cares if anybody stole the design of the iPhone or vice versa? Artists, engineers, musicians, even scientists borrow and remix other people's ideas all the time. It's how information flows and changes and GROWS.
They have common functionality plus they offer extra functionality that the iPhone does not have.
You shouldn't start dissmissing phones simply because they aren't touch screen.
I'm not dismissing anything. I don't care about touch screen, although I do like watching things with Jeff Han.
Someone said that iPhone is cool with Os X because it will work. Evangelion said that all of his phones work. But that doesn't seem fair if they don't have the same functionality.
Couple things I'd like other phones to do worth a crap...
Address Book
Web Surfing
Calendar
Voice Mail
They are all horrible horrible horrible. Just flat out crappy. And that's beside the point that their user interface is acrhaic as is the keyboard.
The iphone is cheaper than many, and more expensive than some and it appears to only lack full apps like excel or word. But perhaps it will have some mini apps. Perhaps they're riding on the imminent iWork release.
No what none of the other phones are? A widescreen iPod. The most advanced iPod to date at that. Except for the lack of storage of course. But hell, inside this iPhone is a nano with a 3.5 inch screen. What's that worth? An 8gig nano with a 1 inch non-touch screen is $200.
Just the amazing voice mail capabilities would make me want one. What other phone can you browse your voice mail right on the screen?
Start by doing your homework. Windows itself is a rip off of the original Mac OS. Ever try to play on a pre 1984 PC? Code Code Code. Horrid. Apple is the best and you are sniping at gnats.
Why can't someone release a new standard to supplant the keyboard that’s designed for typing with thumbs, or maybe with a finger or two? I’m guessing that would be some sort of radial pattern of letters, with high frequency letters near the center. It should obviously be touch-based.
I just don’t get why we should be pleased to have a QWERTY arrangement if we’re never going to type in that way. One of the few advantages that might have over say the number-based ones that some phones have is that users might be more familiar with what keys are where.
was, don't forget the world is actually turning. You might intend to say that windows 3.2 was a rip off of OS1. but You sounds like you were saying windows vista/xp is a rip off of OSX, please, don't be exaggerate. and remember OSX copies numerous code from BSD. So you don't really have any position on OSX.
check wiki for the invention of the keyboard, there was no reason why it was invented that way, as long as ppl use it that way without problem, who care how they were arranged.jhedges3 said:
Where do you think Apple got their UI from? Xerox. MAC OS is a 'copy'... if your going down that road.
Your post is a classic Fan Boi post if ever I saw one.
I have read about it on Wikipedia (see below). According to Wikipedia the QWERTY layout was designed to solve problems that the iPhone doesn’t have, such as jammed keys on a typewriter. Furthermore, even if a person typed with all of their fingers in home row on an iPhone, which nobody will, the layout was designed for slowness, biases typing to the left hand, etc.
Furthermore, I’m not convinced that people do use such a layout on an iPhone, or any other phone, without problems, as you suggest. If you have any evidence that they do I’d be very curious to see it. In any case, whether a better layout should be adopted should not depend on whether people have problems with the existing one. If the benefits of having a newer one out way the negatives of keeping the old one, we should have a new one, one should be developed.
I care about how they’re arranged. There is simply no reason, given multi-touch technology, that we should continue with an archaic standard. It would seem that the ability to have different keyboards for different situations may benefit people with disabilities, people with different hand sizes, people who speak and write in different languages, and people who’ve already, or will, develop some sort of physiological strain from using QWERTY.
From Wikipedia:
The QWERTY keyboard layout was devised in the 1860s by the creator of the first modern typewriter, Christopher Sholes, a newspaper editor who lived in Milwaukee. Originally, the characters on the typewriters he invented were arranged alphabetically, set on the end of a metal bar which struck the paper when its key was pressed. However, once an operator had learned to type at speed, the bars attached to letters that lay close together on the keyboard became entangled with one another, forcing the typist to manually unstick the typebars, and also frequently blotting the document[1]. Sholes solved the jamming problem not by forcing typists to slow down, but by separating common sequences of letters in English[2]. Pairs of keys that are frequently struck in succession were placed as far from each other as possible, so that the hammers that were likely to be used in quick succession were less likely to interfere with each other. [citation needed]
The home row (ASDFGHJKL) of the QWERTY layout is thought to be a remnant of the old alphabetical layout that QWERTY replaced. QWERTY also attempted to alternate keys between hands, allowing one hand to move into position while the other hand strikes a key. This sped up both the original double-handed hunt-and-peck technique and the later touch typing technique; however, single-handed words such as stewardesses, lollipop and monopoly show flaws in the alternation.
An unfortunate consequence of the layout, for right-handed typists, is that many more words can be spelled using only the left hand. In fact, thousands of English words can be spelled using only the left hand, while only a couple of hundred words can be typed using only the right hand.
Well, if Apple's phone does catch on, and I think it will, I will be buying a rev. b or rev. c model. Count me in as someone who will finally give up on Nokia phones for this.
With you former part of the comment, I think that the patent where apple showed one could use a touchscreen kind of interface and then on top of that you could put different human interfaces like keyboard, etc might be something which we will see in near future from apple. and of course other companies may come up with some touchscreen applications of their own. So may be touchscreen itself may not radically change the keyboards but it will definitely morph into many more uses.
I couldn't agree more with the latter part of the comment! We do innovation in our scientific pursuits with borrowing ideas and adding our inputs and giving unique twists here and there and in the process cracking a puzzle. That's how information and our society grows. In research you can't be a lone ranger. You have to depend on something - that could be individuals or prior information or whatever - and then implement those with something from yourself. Now in that process, it may happen that you may stumble upon something or come up with something which will revolutionize the whole process of doing research/work. Probably fire and wheel were such incidents in the past. Aircrafts and air mode of transportation in last century. In more modern times, for example in scientific fields, cracking DNA code, building a PCR, innovative reactions like Sharpless asymmetric synthesis, then in electronics fields like computer, use of mouse, GUI implementation. So nothing started in vacuum. I consider perfectly OK to implement ideas around.
But then there is a difference between plaigarizing something and implementing by innovating a borrowed idea. Now here is where something gets interesting. You will find this with people around you in general too but it is especially true in research areas. There will be many individuals who will be more comfortable (or shall i say more predisposed) to copy things from others (which i like to call as "You do that in rat, I will do it in cat" thing). And then there will be some who will be always predisposed (or more thrilled) to come out with something novel and innovative, even though that step may involve some amount of borrowing information. So this is also true of companies. All companies do some amount of coping/borrowing thing, but then there are some who want to do something special all the time, paying attention to details and try to have edge over the rest and then there will be others who will be more mediocre in innovating/inventing stuff. Just like individuals, the philosophy/approach of company towards their business differentiates the way we look at them. So probably that's how apple is more often seen as innovating and microsoft more often seen as copying although both does it to certain extent. At last, it should be fine wih us to accept both types. Both types helps advancement of our world.
c, im not interested to defend something that doesn't really have a reason, the only reason that layout is still strong, is simply a habit, if you think apple should re-invent the layout, I won't say its not right, I can only say it will not be good for business, coz it against the habit. and this habit, in my opinion, is neither good, nor bad.
technically any windows mobile device with the right 3rd party app and I think there is also a similar software out for palm phones.
Well, the Communicator can do everything iPhone can do, and more (well, it might be lacking in the music/video-department, but still). I had SSH-client in my Communicator for remote server administration for example. And during the keynote, SJ compared iPhone to Nokia E61 (E62 in USA), so they are more or less comparable. My coworker has been using the E61 for months and it's a rock-solid device.
Yes, iPhone has a layer of candy not found on those Nokias. But as far as actual functionality is concerned, they are quite similar.